228 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 



present rides so triumphantly on the flood -tide of a 

 popular movement, eventually stranded, as so many 

 older ones have been, on the sandbanks of the 

 ebb. 



ClTwill therefore be the safest as well as the most 

 cancTTd and truthful course, both for the scientific 

 worker and the theologian, to avoid committing him 

 self to any of the current forms of evolution^ The 

 amount of assumption and reasoning in a vicious 

 circle involved in these renders it certain that none 

 of them can long survive. On the other hand, the 

 extensive investigations as to facts, and the varied 

 discussions which have arisen out of Darwinism, can 

 not fail to leave an impress on science and to increase 

 our knowledge, at least as to the modes of creative 

 development. The winnowing process has already 

 begun, and our immediate successors may be able to 

 secure the pure grains of truth after the chaff of un 

 proved hypotheses has been swept away. 



Looking to this desirable result, there are certain 

 principles that arise out of the previous discussion to 

 which we may firmly hold without fear of being dis 

 lodged by any assailant. 



i. No system of the universe can dispense with 

 a First Cause, eternal and self-existent ; and the First 

 Cause must necessarily be the living God, whose will 

 is the ultimate force and the origin of natural law. 

 Our knowledge of God cannot be direct, but must be 

 mediate, either through His works as Creator or 



